Happy Days!

First flight was in a Cessna 150 from Newtownards airfield in the early 1970’s, with my father flying the left hand seat, a long time ago!
The light aircraft flight that sticks in my mind was from the same airfield this time in a “172”, dad was converting onto type so we were doing circuits with yours truly in the back seat. On one touchdown we were caught by a crosswind causing us to hurtle across the width of the runway with the instructor doing mad things to get us back on course, during this time I was in the back seat thinking my time had come, I might add that I had both arms in plaster as the result of a serious motorcycle crash!

From what I know, Enigma was’t captured until after the Battle of Britain, and wouldn’t have been useful for getting information on enemy raids, mainly used for finding out positions of U boat wolf packs and ships of the Kriegsmarine, haven’t heard of anything to do with it and the Battle of Britain will have a look though and see if I can find anything to do with it.

If memory serves me correctly Dowding was in receipt of Ultra decrypts during the Battle of Britain, these with many other factors helped shape fighter commands strategy for the Battle.

The early work on the German enigma ciphers had been carried out by code breakers in Poland prior to the German invasion in 1939, this pioneering work was destined to be continued at Bletchley Park.

A point you should remember is that versions of the Enigma coding machine were in use by all branches of German armed forces, not just the navy!

A bit of an interest here as the PR9’s were built in Belfast, I get the impression that the major problem with seeing one on the display circuit is that they are close to being out of hours!

Apart from the above red tape and a requirment for lots and lots of money would appear to stand in the way!

Regards To All!

Impressive photos Eric – I did not know Aldergrove once had such an impressive hangar…..any idea what happened to it (I assume it no longer survives)?

The hangar was badly damaged in the mid 1920’s during a storm, as a result part of the building was demolished, however the remainder has continued in use up to the present day.

To the best of my knowledge at least one other building remains from that period, sadly building 1 succumbed to the needs of the service a few years ago!

Eric

Very nice work John!

Eric, thanks for sharing your great pictures with us. Might there be a possibility that you could share a few more with us?

I finally got my turret (FN121) moved into the garage this weekend after sitting idol in storage for a few years. I hope to get back to work on it again soon!

John, you are quite correct when you say that it is very difficult to find parts!

Regards,

Sadly I have not seen the turret since last May, however John should be posting some more pictures soon!

Eric